Mary Cassatt @ National Gallery of Art

Mary Cassatt: Maternal Kiss (1897)

Pennsylvania-born MARY CASSATT (1844-1926), who spent most of her adult life in France, was one of the few female painters to achieve the same level of recognition as her male counterparts when Impressionism flourished in 19th-century Paris.

Throughout the ages, the imaginations of male artists have been inspired by enticingly compliant muses or wildly unpredictable sirens - or both!

(I will omit a 1970s-style, radical-feminist analysis of the biblical virgin/whore stereotyping of women by men that continues in western society - most notably in some radically conservative segments of American society - until this very day. Just read Margaret Atwood's brilliant dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" or contemplate what really might lie behind new "policies" implemented in various US states ***recently*** that affect women's ***reproductive rights*** to imagine just how far some folks could "run" with this stuff, and why groups like Planned Parenthood and the National Organization for Women are still relevant today.)

Mary Cassatt: The Child's Bath (1893)
(Photos: Wikimedia Commons)

Some legendary male artists of Cassatt's era produced slightly voyeuristic visions of nude female models, dancers, or prostitutes that tended at times to take on an erotically charged flavor. This frisson of excitement, however, often breathed great life into their works (think Degas' dancers, Lautrec's ladies of the night, Manet's bold-faced "Olympia", etc.).

Cassatt, by constrast, primarily went about portraying people in more intimate, familial settings. And by people I mean mostly mothers and daughters (men are largely absent from her work). Cassatt painted scenes of women and children who led quite sheltered, Victorian-era, upper-crust lives (she was a woman of means herself). These touching maternal scenes were often set in interiors and conveyed the simple joy of tender daily moments, such as bedtime, bathtime or playtime for young children, their mothers looking fondly on or coddling them affectionately.

Inspired by my own recent blogpost on the National Museum of Women in the Arts, I decided to revisit one of my all-time-favorite Cassatt paintings, which just happens to be part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. (I would "bien sur" recommend going straight to the source to see the original work - no photographic reproduction of a painting can ever quite do the original justice. I also highly recommend the NGA cafeteria, gift shop and the gelato served at the coffee bar - a tasty summertime treat!)

The painting is called Little Girl in a Blue Armchair (1878) and I absolutely ADORE it. I love everything about it, especially the perspective used to depict a bored, dressed-up little girl slumped down into a huge armchair, her limbs all askance in a distinctly child-like, floppy way, and the tiny dog resting with an equal look of resigned ennui in another chair nearby. I also love the way still more chairs are cropped in the background (perhaps under the influence of Japanese-style painting, which was en vogue at the time and also inspired many of Cassatt's works). This close cropping, brings the viewers gaze back to the little girl and the tiny dog, and helps the eye to focus on the brushstrokes that indicate a floral pattern covering the blue chair the girl is sitting in in the foreground of the painting, which also does a good job (even if inadvertently) of observing the "rule of thirds" popular in modern photography.

Mary Cassatt: Little Girl in a Blue Armchair (1878)

When I was much younger I actually found Cassatt's work kind of dull compared to that of, say, Van Gogh, or even Monet, Degas, Seurat, Pissaro or Manet, whom I am particularly fond of. I really could not for the life of me understand when I was 18 or 19 why my own mother, who studied painting and sculpture at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in the 1960s, was so particularly moved by Cassatt's maternally infused impressionistic stylings. I wanted to see more crazed swirls and explosions of color along the lines of Vincent's works, or that of the brilliant French artist Andre Derain.

But NOW I get it - Cassatt's paintings are timeless classics and jewels in the crown of the entire impressionistic ouevre.

I could stare at "Little Girl in a Blue Armchair" for a really long time.